YEMEN
: Preserving Sanaa's Unique Architecture

The
ancient walled city of Sanaa, with its mosques,
souqs and spectacular domestic architecture,
presents a challenge to planners and restorers.
“Here we have a coherent example of
Arab culture which is still alive, still
flourishing”, says Iraqi architect
Samar Damluji, who has done extensive research
on Yemeni cities. The old city of Sanaa
has not yet been socially and economically
eclipsed by the new city, as is the case
in Cairo. Its unity and harmony have not
been destroyed by the development of office-blocks
and motorways, as have many parts of old
Damascus and Bagdad.

An old city teeming with life

In the narrow winding streets of Sanaa
today, few modern buildings are in evidence
and they retain many of the distinctive
design features of the older buildings.
What is more, the old city teems with life.
Unlike, for instance, old Jerusalem, it
has not become a tourist trap. Whatever
its problems, most Sananis are proud of
their city and take a lively interest in
its history and heritage.

So saving Sanaa is not a question of reviving
a dead city but of ensuring that the city
remains an integral part of Yemeni life.
But in the last few years the pace of change
has quickened. Professor Ronald Lewcock,
a leading authority on the architecture
of Sanaa, believes that the physical decay
of many of the city’s finest buildings,
though worrying, is not as serious as the
growing exodus of residents from the walled
city. This lends urgency to restoration
plans. But the need for rapid action has
not, so far, been met by the slow-moving
Unesco campaign.

Until
the 1962 revolution, the old city of Sanaa
had changed little since the explorer Carsten
Niebuhr visited it in 1762. Most of the
population of about 50.000 lived within
its walls. Preliminary results from the
1986 census indicate that 425.000 people
now live inside the present city boundaries,
of whom only 30.000-35.000 are residents
of the old city.

Each year scores of families moves from
their homes in the old city to the comfort
of a new suburban villa, although without
necessarily breaking their links with the
old city altogether. For Abdullah Allos,
a judge in tribal law and a shaikh with
authority over several of the traditional
quarters in the old city, 1962 marked a
turning-point in Sanaa’s history.
He feels that despite the undeniable benefits
brought by the revolution, its impacts on
the city was negative.

For him, it meant the weakening of familiy
ties. Traditionally, several generations
would live together in the same house. Sanaa’s
magnificent domestic architecture reflected
this family cohesion and prestige. With
the opening-up of the country after the
revolution, lifestyles began to change,
and sons began to want separate houses when
they got married.

“I used to live in an old house bought
by my father 70 years ago”, Shaikh
Allos says. His brother and five sisters
also lived in the same house. But eventually,
they all got married and had children. “Then
it was no longer possible to live all together.
So we sold the old house and built or bought
new houses, four of us in the old city,
three in the new one”.

Young people are attraacted by the facilities
of the new town

Younger
people are also attracted by the facilities
of the new town. Abdel-Nasser, aged 30,
is the son of Yahya Suneidar, a leading
Sanani merchant. He studied abroad and now
works in one of his father’s shops.
He and his family live in the new city.
“We prefer the new house”, he
says. “We have a lot of space, a nice
garden, fresh water for the kids”.

His father is still devoted to their large
family house near the Friday mosque, and
says he has spent 600.000 rials ($70.500)
restoring it. But with most of his immediate
family now living abroad or outside the
old city, the house is empty and he is now
thinking of renting it out as a hotel.

He admits that the old houses are hard
work for the women of the family. “The
old house, with its seven floors and 120
steps, needs a lot of work. Before, we used
to have servants. We had four women, two
to take care of the animals (goats and sheep
were usually kept on the ground floor of
city houses) and two for the kitchen and
house cleaning. They were Yemenis, wives
of soldiers or peasants who worked for a
quarter of a rial a month”. Now, he
says, no Yemeni woman would take such a
job, only migrants from Ethiopia or Djibouti.

Maintenance is very important for the survival
of these old family houses. But labour and
building materials are very expensive, especially
if there are few family members to share
the cost. Some houses are left empty or
almost empty because the heirs cannot agree
what to do with the house. Frequently the
house and its garden, hidden behind high
walls, have been endowed as a family waqf
(waqf dhuriyya) and cannot be sold. So it
is either left empty, or rented to tenants.
Either way, maintenance often suffers.

Abdel-Rahman Ziraji, a coffee merchant
left his family home three years ago to
live in a new house he had built outside
the walls, though he continues to work in
the old city. “I hate to leave the
old family house in which I had spent my
whole life”, he says. “ “But
the whole time I was spending money to repair
it. The house doesn’t belong to me;
It is a waqf dhurriyya endowed by
my own grandfather, and I shared it with
my sisters and uncles. We cannot sell it
and now it is empty”.

Although the city is suffering from the
exodus of many of its inhabitants, economically
it is still very much alive. The souq area
-- some 47.000 square meters -- is a city
within a city, with 40 different souqs and
1.700 shops. The area also includes a number
of historic buildings, such as the Friday
mosque and the samsaras (caravanserais)
of Muhammad Ben Hassan and Al-Nahass.

“The whole economy of the (old) city
lies within the souq”, says Franck
Mermier, a French scholar who is writing
a thesis on the souq. But here too, despite
the air of bustle and prosperity, there
have been many changes. Shaikh Muhammad
Amer, a wholesale fabrics merchant, has
seen many changes since 1967, when he became
the senior shaikh of the old city. During
the last four or five years, he explains,
all the big merchants -- the Watari, the
Suneidar, the Ghamdan and the Aslan families
-- have left the old souq because they have
moved into new areas of business. “Before,
they used to sell fabrics and spices, like
all of us. Now they are selling tractors,
pumps, cars and perfumes. It’s natural
that they would move out of the old souq
to larger premises”, the shaikh said.
He remains in the shop which belonged to
his father, because he likes the neighbourhood
and because the shop is large enough for
his business. “My sons will do what
they want”, he concludes, sitting
on a pile of fabrics imported from Taiwan
and Macao while chewing his afternoon qat.

Crafts in decline

Not only have some of the big merchants
moved out, but some of the traditional crafts
are no longer practised, and whole sections
of the souq have been disbanded. For instance,
though some types of metalwork continue,
the copper souq has disappeared. Other trades,
like tailoring, selling veils and trousers
for women, have expanded, taking over whole
streets previously reserved for other wares.

Near Bab al-Yemen, an old city gate, one
of the last camel-driven oil presses is
still at work. Its owner bought back his
three brothers’ shares in the business
for 125.000 rials ($14.700). “They
wanted to sell the shop”, he says,
“but I refused because my father asked
me to keep the business”.He kept only
one of the two presses and scarcely makes
a living from it. It takes a whole day to
press three liters of sesame oil which he
sells at 60 rials ($7) a litre, while imported
margarine can be bought much more cheaply.

“The main threat is that the souq
will stop being a centre of production for
craftsmen and become merely a sales depot
for poor-quality goods for the rural population”,
argues Mermier. At present, there is no
shortage of customers in the souq. In addiction
to old-city residents, people from the countryside
like to shop there. Often they have known
the merchants for years and find products
they could not buy elsewhere. The new suburbs
have their own shopping areas, but it seems
many still prefer the old souq.

Yet the economic balance has changed, as
shops, offices, workshops and factories
have proliferated outside the walls. Those
with money to invest, whether in businesses
or property, look to the new city. According
to Lewcock, in recent years the government
has passed a number of regulations which
relate to the needs of the modern commercial
sector but which have caused difficulties
for the merchants of the old souq.

While everyone seems to agree that the
old souq is important and should stay as
it is, Lewcock suggests that merchants should
be offered incentives to keep their businesses
there. He and other experts stress that
its continued prosperity is vital to the
success of any restoration project. If the
economy is not flourishing, no amount of
restoration will prevent the old city’s
decline.

Consulting the elders

Also crucial to stem the flow of people
and money out of the old city are major
improvements to the ramshackle infrastructure.
Dr. Abdel-Rahman Haddad is an official who
has been active in involving community leaders
in this daunting project. His task is made
somewhat easier by the fact that the traditional
leaders -- the merchants, and the shaikhs
and headmen of the quarters -- still retain
much of their influence.

One such person is Shaikh Allos, who argues
that nothing can be achieved in the old
city without the co-operation of these traditional
representatives. “We are the only
ones who know the people”, he asserts.
“We know who needs help and
who does not. Without us the government
cannot do anything. The state comes like
a flooded river. It does not know who is
rich and who is poor”. Dr Haddad believes
there is some truth in this. One of his
first actions in his new post was to organise
a meeting of 160 community representatives
to sound out their wishes and involve them
in the restoration of the city.

This highlighted some of the basic problems
which lead people to look for homes elsewhere.
Most of the streets are unpaved and dusty,
or when it rains, they become seas of mud.
The community leaders suggested the streets
should be paved with black Yemeni stone,
not asphalted. They also want electricity
cables buried; at present they festoon the
streets and walls, a dangerous eyesore.

Cleaning up the streets

Still worse is the rubbish problem. Some,
like Abdel-Rahman Ziraji, blame “foreigners”
-- Yemenis from the countryside who come
to shop in the souq. He claims it is they
who throw litter in the streets, and says
the city used to be much cleaner.
Certainly the waste generated by modern
consumer goods has combined with a poor
standard of rubbish collection to make an
unhealthy environment and one which does
not encourage people to keep their own houses
in good repair. One of the problems with
efforts to improve the collection of rubbish
is that it is the work of a very poor, low-status
group from the Tihama, known as the akhdam,
who live in one of the few squatter settlements
on the outskits of Saana.

Traffic problems are also high on the list
of local complaints. Cars and motorcycles
cause congestion and danger in the narrow
streets. But only one of the old-city representatives
was willing to accept a total ban on cars
inside the walls. This was Yahya Suneidar,
who now lives in the new town. He thinks
people should go back to using animals to
carry their goods. But Shaikh Allos fears
that if such an extreme measure were taken
more people would leave the old city. The
consensus is that the narrowest streets
should be closed to traffic, that there
should be a system of one-way streets, and
that parking lots should be built. Some
merchaants objected to the idea of limiting
access to vehicles to the early morning.
Abdel-Rahman Ziraji, for instance, says
some of his customers drive long distances
to deliver their qishr (coffee husks) and
bun (coffee beans), and need constant access
to his samsara.

One of the main reason for the collapse
of houses in recent years has been poor
drainage. According to Lewcock, piped water
supplies were installed without an adequate
drainage system. Fractured water-pipes added
to the damp rising under the houses and
undermining their foundations. A World Bank-assisted
project for a main sewage and drainage system
should alleviate the problem. But much damage
has already been done. Lewcock recalls that
in one week in 1983 five houses collapsed.
During heavy rains this March (1986), two
houses collapsed.

Who will pay?

The Yemeni government and Dr Haddad have
been trying to persuade the merchants to
help finance improvements in the souq area.
But the merchants are cautious. “We
are ready to contribute”, says Shaikh
Amer diplomatically, “but only once
we see that the government has started work”.
He adds some merchants have already made
a contribution. The shoe merchants, for
instance, have paid for the sewage system
in their district. But he argues that not
all the merchants can afford to help.

Both infrastructural and restoration work
is expensive, and clearly public funds are
needed. As Lewcock points out, the Yemeni
government has shown itself willing to put
money in the old city, but after the drain
on the budget caused by the 1983 earthquake,
the sums available are small. International
help is therefore essential.

So far, the only assistance has been $5
million of bilateral aid from Italy to improve
the Sayyad Maad district of the old city.
The project includes paving the streets,
after burying the electric and telephone
cables, and the restoration of several threatened
houses. The Italian team will also try out
different techniques of restoration, using
modern and traditional materials. in addition,
as part of a 10-million-rial ($1,2 million)
cultural centre, they will build an experimental
laboratory for research into building techniques.

Although in the new city modern building
techniques are dominant, the old skills
have not yet died out. “The Yemenis
themselves are the most knowledgeable and
expert on their own architecture. We can
only contribute to the development of established
techniques -- not impose new ones”,
says architect Samar Damluji. The problem
is that traditional building methods, though
both durable and attractive, are no longer
cheap. The cost of skilled labour for this
time-consuming work is now high. Abdel-Rahman
Ziraji, who has restored his family’s
samsara, estimates that he spent 120.000
rials ($14.000) in wages for three masons
and goss (traditional lime-plaster) workers.
The goss itself has become expensive:
the government subsidises cement but not
lime and gypsum. The mud-bricks from which
many of the houses are built were made locally
until the Sanaa brickworks was closed down.
The cost of transporting bricks from Hodeida
proved prohibitive. Recently, the Sanaa
brickworks was reopened in response to demand.
But these are problems which can be resolved.
“We are doing experiments to see if,
by the use of simple machines, we can cut
the labour time involved in some of the
traditional methods”, says Lewcock.

The city’s future

Despite the magnitude of Sanaa’s
problems, and the shortage of money, most
observers are cautiously optimistic about
the old city’s future, not least because
both residents and government officials
have shown a concern to preserve its cultural
heritage and improve the environment. A
few people have moved back into the old
city. Ahmed Ali Elibbi, a 30-year-old architect
who studied in Damascus and now works in
Dr Haddad’s office, has set an example
by restoring a house in the old city belonging
to his wife’s grandmother. They spent
20.000 rials ($2.350) on the house and are
happy living there. “In the old city”,
Elibbi says, “you feel a special relationship
with the people living around you”.

But Samar Damluji stresses that saving
Sanaa does not just mean restoration. This
approach, she says, is purely cosmetic.
“It’s unhealthy to see cities
as antiquities. For whose benefit are they
being restored? You can’t treat
rehabilitation as a project on its own --
it has to relate to national planning as
a whole”.